


Kintsugi - Tools of the trade

by kayejwrotes



Series: How to choose a gift [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternative Universe - Tattoo Parlour, Bittersweet, Established Relationship, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Birthday Oikawa Tooru!, M/M, Mention of injuries, Mention of scars, Oikawa Tooru's Knee Injury, Oikawa Tooru-centric, Potter Artist! Oikawa, Tattoo Artist! Iwaizumi, amazing!, and it’s still the 20th here!!!, dealing with pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayejwrotes/pseuds/kayejwrotes
Summary: Kintsugi - or kintsukuroi - it’s the art of patching up broken things, make them beautiful and useful once again.It’s a work of hands, precision, patience, lacquer and gold. And love.





	Kintsugi - Tools of the trade

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read without the first instalment of this little series “The concept of a gift”, but I recommend you give it a look to immerse yourself in this au.
> 
> I hope you’ll enjoy this!

Hands have always been the tool of Oikawa's trade.  
Whether they were weapons and vessels of strength in highschool while he used to set for Seijoh, or when in college they became mere tools, shaping and crafting, giving life to immovable pieces of clay.

He struggles a lot to keep them clean and smooth, because clay has the ability to sneak everywhere, under nails, in between cracks of skin, on clothes and hair.

He surely has a hard time with this part of his job, but sure as hell he keeps them as clean as he can, moisturising them regularly, trying not to get too many bruises and cuts on them.

He likes for Hajime to feel soft skin on skin contact whenever he gives him a caress, not some gritty sandpaper.

Oikawa pays a lot of attention to them, but sometimes it's not enough.  
It only makes sense that the strain is too much occasionally, that he pushed himself excessively, that there's pain running up his fingers, his hands, his wrists, up to his shoulders.

Most of the times though, he only lets himself acknowledge it when the work is finished, ridges repaired and patched up with pure gold, what was broken transformed into something whole and beautiful again.

He's used to pain, he’d say. There's no way he cannot be used to it at this point, after what happened to him.

Even know, sighing when he sticks his hands into the white bowl filled with warm water and Epsom salts, Tooru can't help but feel this is nothing, compared to that kind of pain.

When his knee had given up it had been painful in such a deep way it had taken months, years, to get to where he is now. And not in terms of physical pain management. He’d always been good to ignore the real pain, but for the one in his soul… that was a different story.

The memory is still so vivid, despite all the years that passed.

He had jumped up, graceful and strong, back perfectly arched to put more strength into the serve. His right arm was coming down like a mace, ready to hit the ball floating just right above him, at the perfect angle for one of his famous killer serves.

The slam of the ball against his hand had been so satisfying!

He was already grinning while going down, back on the ground, while he watched the ball fly toward the left corner of the opposite side of the court.  
His serve had been as powerful as it could be, already scaring everyone that was even thinking on trying to receive it on the other side of the court.

But the moment his foot touched the ground, that moment crashed down upon him. Vain, young, stupid, all of that. All upon his broken knee cap.

The smiles of his teammates and the terrified stares of his opponents frozen in a twist of worry as a wail - his cry of pain - pierced the silence in which the court had fallen.

It’s weird how clearly he still remembers this and not other details, when he was probably more lucid.

The doctors coming and putting him up on the stretcher and the run to the hospital, those moments are all warped into a single crazy instant.  
Those worried eyes on him though, he still remembers them one by one.

The only thing that was a constant through all of that, steady, trustworthy, was Hajime’s hand gripping tightly his own, even in the ambulance where he had made quite clear he didn’t want to leave him.

Tooru was in pain, his knee throbbing and swollen as a balloon, but all he could see in between tears were Hajime’s lips saying: “Everything’s going to be okay, Tooru”.

Oh, how much he hated him the next morning, from the hospital bed he was lying in with his knee was propped up with a sleeve and wrapped tightly in white bandages.  
He couldn’t lift himself up, he couldn’t move at all, still too dazed by the anaesthesia. Despite being unable to move, he felt them, the stitchings pulling angrily on his thigh, down upon his knee cap to the middle of his shin where they ended.

Hajime had told him everything would have been okay, he had kept repeating it for the whole time he had been there, almost like a mantra he had needed for himself more than for Tooru, because otherwise Tooru would have loathed him more.

Everything wasn’t okay. Everything would never fucking be okay anymore.

He sighed at the thought of that moment. He had felt so angry toward Hajime, perfect beautiful Hajime, with no scars marring his skin and all the strength he needed in his legs to jump as high as he wanted, to reach the sky they had always been looking to.

Despite this, Hajime had stayed by his side, immovable and just there where he had always been.

He had tended to him, drinking all the venom Tooru managed to spit every time he changed his bandages, every time he saw the ugly stitches, every time he tried to walk toward their apartment’s door and failed to even touch the handle because his leg couldn’t support him. Yet.

Yet, was what Hajime kept saying him. He had never once doubted about Tooru ability to recover completely, but Tooru couldn’t see a future when walking wasn’t painful and when there was no need for Hajime supporting him at every single step.

He had been a stupid, ungrateful, stubborn mule. Hajime had stood by his side through everything, enduring whatever Tooru threw at him even if it wasn’t his fault.  
He had been there in the darkest moment of Tooru life - he’d say years later, when the pain was just a memory - so he could be there when brighter times would come.

He had worked hard to repair him, shape him back to something beautiful, just like Tooru now did with old broken pottery.  
Even when Tooru hadn't been able to see beauty in himself, not when beauty has always been hand in hand with the pride he took in his capability and indipendence, Hajime was there, telling him every single day he was beautiful to him.

At first, it had been hard even to look at himself in the mirror, but one day Hajime suggested he tried something new.

Working with his hands had always been something he was good at. He was crafty.  
There was this free pottery course held at the local recreational center in their neighbourhood.

It was guaranteed to be full to the brim with nagging aunties and crickety old men.

Tooru was absolutely against it. But Hajime had promised to accompany him at the first lesson.  
He was free to never go again to something like that if it didn't work out.  
It was just one pottery lesson, what harm could it do?  
Maybe they'd both end up with horribly shaped ashtrays and that would be it.  
Hajime had joked he’d needed a new one anyway.

The class wasn’t a real class when they had made their way into it, Hajime’s steps matching Tooru’s jumpy way with his blue crouches.  
It was more of a basement with lots of slim and blinding windows that helped natural light filter from above.  
The room was full with dirty looking tables, each one equipped with his tray full of carefully wrapped clay, a small basin with clear water and round looking wood lathe with the small pedal to make it turn underneath.

Of course, there had been no less than six aunties chatting and chirping cheerily, one old man that Tooru was really worried would crumble to pieces with the next blow of air, and then two very good looking boys in their twenties, namely Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru.  
He had probably underestimated how much aunties would love something like pottery.  
He was already hating everything about it when the teacher had started giving generically information on how everything on their desks worked and such, and he had made sure Hajime was informed of this by shooting regular dirty looks at him, but his boyfriend seemed unfazed by it.

He was hating everything about it, but he guessed he could play along for one more hour and at least make a very weak attempt at shaping an ugly ashtray. A dick shaped one.

Instead, when Tooru had plunged his hands into the slimy clay block, it had felt good. Relaxing. Tension coming loose inside him.

He had looked startled around himself, but no one was paying attention to him, not even Hajime that seemed intent with a battle against his own clay block.

He had quickly glanced around and pushed his fingers into the clay once again, this time pulling and stretching it.

In the end, he had walked home with a clay-splattered t-shirt and a very confused look in his eyes.

“Did you like it?” Hajime had asked him with a cheerful smile on the way back home.

And Tooru had replied a weak “... Yeah” still mulling over the sensation of the whole experience.  
He had come back the next week. And the week after that. And the one after that.

After a year or so of pottery classes, Hatsumoto-sensei had taken a liking at him and introduced him to something more complex than simple vases.

He had presented him with a broken teacup.  
An ugly fall had broken the beautiful traditionally crafted cup, his blue pigment fraying from the fissure, he had said with no emotion showing on his face and Tooru had first didn’t understand.

But then he had watched Hatsumoto-sensei pick up a small red lacquer block and melting it into a tiny basin. The melted lacquer, carefully painted on the cracks of the broken cup, sealed them into one piece again.

Tooru had watched it all in silence.

Hatsumoto-sensei then had picked up a little wooden box, the bottom glinting gold when the light had touched it, and then proceeded to cover the red lacquer seals with gold.

“... it’s beautiful”, the whisper had escaped Tooru’s lips without him even acknowledging it.

“You know, I kinda believed this would interest you” that sly sensei had said, still carefully covering in gold powder all the lacquer, “You are good with your hands, very careful and precise. But sometimes that’s not enough to repair a broken thing. You need glue, and patience, because it’s not probably going to stick on the first try. You’ll probably mess it up the first time, but who cares, that’s not the point.  
The point it’s to make something beautiful and useful from something that was broken and unuseful.  
That’s why we need lacquer and gold, other than our precision and ability. It’s not a one-man job.”

Hatsumoto-sensei fixed him with a look, and Tooru felt as if he could see deep down his soul.

“Next time, try it yourself.”

Tooru had nodded frantically, tears starting to run down his cheeks.

  
That night, he had fallen asleep in Hajime’s arms, legs askew and protective brace not hidden by baggy trousers, the word sorry still on his lips like the tears on his cheeks.

  
Now, on his birthday, other memories had lessened the pain of that time, the journey through recovering, through finding beauty and way to be useful, independent, whole once again.

And Hajime had always been there, he thought while carefully patting the water away from his hands and putting some cream on them, and last the ring on his middle finger. He hated to take it away anytime he worked, but it was there, waiting for him to take him up once again, just like Hajime had been there through the whole process, waiting for him to pick his pieces up once again.

Hajime, who had been lacquer and gold at the same time, always by his side, now and forever.

Hajime who had asked multiple times about what Tooru wanted for his birthday, but never once received a clear answer, because in all honesty Tooru didn’t want anything else.

All the cracks on Tooru’s skin shined brightly with love, on his birthday, and that was the best gift Hajime would ever be able to give him.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so sorry Oikawa for making you suffer with bittersweet memories on your birthday, but it’s beautiful in a way, isn’t it? *sweats nervously*
> 
> (I felt so bad for him while writing this — I’M SO SORRY)
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading and - hopefully - enjoying this!  
> Please remember than kudos and comments are very much appreciated (they fuel my creativity!) and if you want to chat a bit more about this au and anything else come talk to me @kayejwrotes on Tumblr!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Stump and all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634806) by [NotThatIWillEverWriteIt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotThatIWillEverWriteIt/pseuds/NotThatIWillEverWriteIt)




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